The Echelon
by theuone
Summary: Everything was normal in the city of Warfang, until the day the sky turned red with the arrival of celestial sphere known as the Echelon. Spyro and Cynder soon endeavor to explore it, yet things don't go as planned. Now in the company of nine other clueless beings throughout the universe, Spyro and his new friends must unravel the mysteries of the sphere, and save Cynder.
1. After the Storm

**(** And so I present you a brand new story of mine, featuring Spyro and Cynder, and nine other unique characters from across the universe, thus the reason this is a crossover. In general, this story was inspired by the song Echelon by 30 Seconds to Mars. If you haven't noticed from my uploaded short story, I've been here every day, just unable to make progress on my previous stories, and only one casualty in S.U.A., which'll be rebooted in due time, and everything else will be updated eventually. This right here is just a minor prologue, setting up the aftermath of the games and such. And to be honest, I'm not even sure how I feel about how I've wrote this prologue, if you know what I mean. **)**

 **Prologue - After the storm:**

It was a several days after that downfall of Malefor the Dark Master, and Spyro and Cynder had returned to the city of Warfang after a while of waking up in a meadow, relaxing, and then celebrating on their own. However, despite saving the word, for a while before heading to the city, there was one thing weighing on the heads; Ignitus. It was this that got the duo to head back and explain the grim news, which followed with two things ... a funeral for the fire Guardian, and then a celebration for stopping Malefor. After said purple's demise, many dragons from across the world came out of hiding, rebirthing what was considered a dwindling population, including dragons of many elements, some of which were rare, including wind and water. Whilest Terrador and the rest resolved to appoint Guardians for the lost elements, fire remained empty, as none were ready to replace Ignitus, not that his legacy ever could've been.

Right now, Spyro and Cynder were inside Warfang's arena, which was undergoing repairs still, doing some training, with Spyro mostly trying to get the hang of water and wind; Cynder herself had been appointed to teach him what she could about wind.

Spyro currently let out the strongest gust of wind he could, which was just a mere breeze. He proceeded to sigh and look around at the tan-colored arena, thinking about how everything was almost destroyed.

Cynder frowned a bit, tapping her claws on the ground, "Come on Spyro, I know you can do better. What's wrong?"

"Nothing much, only just how eventful the last week has been, even more so the month." Spyro replied thoughtfully, tail waving around.

"Hmmm," Cynder nodded, "True ... we've had to go through hell and back, but it's over now. Even .. Ignitus."

Spyro let a sigh of a nod, "Yeah, he was like a father to me, and now he's gone. ... If only he hadn't sacrificed himself. Well, at least he's safe, wherever he is."

"You're kinda lucky, I never had a family, and no one else for that matter, until we met that is. Speaking of such, I wonder where Sparx is, I haven't seen him all day." Cynder replied with a chuckle, looking up at the evening sky, moons rising as the sun was setting.

"Probably to Mom and Dad .. and yes, I still call them that." Spyro said thoughtfully, then going back to sending out gusts of wind, of which were stronger than the first by far.

Soon Cynder said, "Hey, let's go somewhere to watch the sunset, before it ends."

Spyro nodded, spreading his wings, "Like the balcony-room of the temple, you know, the room Terrador gave us."

"Exactly. Race ya." Cynder replied, darting into the air, and Spyro followed.

From then, they shared the view of the last rays of sunlight vanishing into the horizon. Three particular words had echoed in Spyro's mind, yet he had yet to find a way, or time, to repeat them to Cynder, with all that had gone on, and so he left them unspoken, though wondering what Cynder thought; she certainly had refused to leave his side since they had first reawoken, so much so that Spyro had no idea if Malefor's chain-amulet-thing was gone. At least Cynder was happy around him, which said enough for Spyro's taste. After the sunset and a dinner, they went to sleep, prepared for another normal day.

When that day came, however, it was anything but normal. The duo were awoken in their bedroom to the arrival of Terrador on the balcony, "Wake up, you **have** to see this."

Spyro blinked as he yawned, noticing that even with Terrador's presence blocking the balcony, it was unnaturally dark outside ... in fact there was a reddish glow. Once Cynder woke up, the two walked outside when Terrador headed to the sky, and the sight made them gasp, for that in the sky was a red sphere of sorts, blocking out the sunlight.

"What in the word?" Cynder said in awe, wings twitching.

"We don't know, it just appeared when we woke up." Terrador answered.

Spyro gazed at the red orb silently, noticed a different kind of red circle in its middle. "Maybe we should try to get closer to it, maybe's it's some kind of thing."

Terrador looked thoughtful, "Perhaps, but are you sure? It could be dangerous."

Spyro nodded, "We beat Malefor, I'm sure we could handle ourselves. That is ... if you want to come Cynder."

"Obviously I'll come with you, you don't even have to ask." Cynder replied, wings already spread.

"Still, be careful, we got you back after the end, but I wouldn't take any chances." Terrador said.

And thus the two heroes flew off to the horizon, to the mysteriously sphere, which seemed to be much bigger than Spyro had thought once they got near to it. The other circle Spyro had seen was clearly a portal; the closer they had gotten to it, the more it felt that they were being pulled to it. In fact, very soon, he was getting violently sucked into it, just as much as Cynder was being pulled away from him; whatever this was did not want them together.

"Spyro!"

"Cynder!"

And then, Spyro blacked out, unaware of what was about to happen.

 **(** Here's the prologue, the real fun comes next. Oh, some self-lore ... what I've determined to have Spyro special as a purple isn't being able to wield multiple elements, but instead it's about the connection to convexity .. the pure essence of magic itself. Consequently, that's what gives Spyro access to other elements, more than the base four. **)**


	2. Interdimensional Introductions

**(** And now the official first chapter, introducing the rest of the cast. **)**

 **Chapter 1 - Interdimensional Introductions**

When Spyro next woke, it was on a black circle in the large circular room, which was as red as the sphere had been, but also with gold lines randomly running about the ceiling, and there were sphere's of concentrated light to illuminate the room, though Spyro could not see anything resembling a window or door. The next thing he noticed was the nine other sleeping bodies on other black circles, ranging from normal animals to some creatures he had never seen before.

The first to catch Spyro's eye was another dragon, though unlike any he had ever seen. This dragon's scales were a calm blue, they also had visible ears and frills behind them. Also were some average horns above the frills, a pointed snout, long claws on each of their legs, a ridge on their back, which went all the way down to their curled tail, which seemed to be prehensile. Whoever this was, they were not from Spyro's world, and grew eager to chat with them.

In contrast, by the circle next to them, was a mere bat with black fur, though with a hint of silver, especially the white fur on the belly, which resembled a circle, and three waves (if they could be called that) going both up and down each. If Spyro hadn't the thought that this bat wasn't special, he have eaten it.

Next was equally simple-looking, as the figure was a red-furred fox with a white tail tip, yet Spyro could've sworn that the fox shimmered, as if it weren't quite there.

Then Spyro's eyes caught the bright-white horse by them, yet it was no horse, sporting a silver horn and gold feathered wings, as was the golden color of their mane and tail, though their hooves were silver. Spyro watched it for a moment, quite awed to see something so bright yet not blinding.

Going back to simplicy was the polar bear asleep by the horse; in fact, this polar bear seemed to be the most unremarkable creature there, with their white coat of fur and black nose and stubby tail.

Afterwards, Spyro saw the shadowy black wolf with a twinge of purple fur; it was like this wolf was part of darkness, and disappear from some completely if not illuminated.

Beside the wolf was a firebird .. a phoenix, of bright red and orange feathers, and a yellow beak and legs. Spyro was quite surprised to see what was considered a rare creature here, and was growing quite eager to see them wake up.

Next to the phoenix was a more humanoid bird, sporting blue feathers, yet with acid-green feathers on the wings and as a strip of green in the middle of their tail feathers. Their beak was grey, as were their arms and legs, aside from the feathers, and it was worth nothing their arms (which had four claws, one as a thumb) were not connected to their wings. A large satchel lay beside them, and Spyro wondered what it could possibly hold.

Last of all was the bright green snake curled up on the other circle beside Spyro, though this snake also had dark-green feathered wings.

All in all, Spyro was quite surprised by the array of creatures around him, which most were around his size, except for the wolf, bat, and fox, "Wow." He uttered quietly.

Soon, the other dragon started waking up, and proceeded to silently blink his emerald eyes from Spyro to the bat, and Spyro being a predator too, shook his head just as silently. Although, with the others waking up too, that included the bat, whom started things off with a very loud yelp, and began flapping his wings to have no one in biting distance of him.

Spyro blinked, "Ummm, hi ..."

"What in the world is going on?" Said the phoenix, her blue eyes looking around at everyone else.

"I .. am speechless." Said the female polar bear, whom had ice-blue eyes.

The wolf with red eyes nodded silently; he appeared to be observing the group.

The male fox, who had gray eyes, looked around, though not appearing all that surprised.

The humanoid bird, whom had blue eyes as well, looked around in awe, sitting up, "Amazing ..." He cawed slowly.

The horse was next to speak, his yellow eyes looking around, taking interest in the wolf for whatever reason, "Did not expect this when I woke up."

The winged serpent coiled himself upward, reaching Spyro's height at least, and looked at the others with acid-green eyes, "I believe I sssshall be the firssst with official greetingsss then, hello all of you."

The bat seemed to relax then, "Ummm, no one is going to eat me?" He squeaked out, earning nine shaking heads.

"Sounds like a good time to introduce ourselves, who wants to go first?" The other dragon replied casually.

"I will," the bat replied quickly, "I am Silon, sigh-lawn, and I'm obviously a bat. Umm, my home was a tree, and ..."

"Where are you from, like planet-wise? I've never heard of talking bats before." The fox interjected.

"Errm, I don't know .. some call it Earth I guess." Silon answered, landing on his little claws

"Funny, same here, but I'm sure I'd know if bats could talk." The polar bear replied.

"Maybe it's a different kind of Earth, I myself have heard of several." The fox said thoughtfully.

"Anywho .. I don't know what else to say. Hmmmm, oh, I can kinda do things with sound and stuff, like control it and hear better I guess." Silon replied, thinking.

"Huh .. well, I'm Arctura," said the polar bear, "and I lived in a cave really far north on .. my Earth? Yeah. Oh, I was a mother."

"Was?" Silon blinked.

Arctura let out a frosty sigh, "My kids .. they died, a freak snowstorm that literally came out a nowhere ... I couldn't get them to safety in time." She began obviously tearing up at the memory, though the tear seemed to turn to ice on her snout.

"Oh my dear," the phoenix gasped, "I too spent time as a mom, but my kids grew up a long time ago. I may look young, but that's phoenix things."

Arctura nodded at her, "I see. Go ahead."

"Okay, my name's Blarna, and I'm just your average everyday firebird, having lived in a volcano in a world full of different kinds of phoenixes .. ice, water, wind, earth, electricity, .. you know, and there's lots of mountains the many live around, including some cities. I myself though sometimes wonder if my fires are hotter than other fire phoenixes. Hmm, can't think of much else to say, who wants to go next?"

"I do," said the other bird eagerly, "I'm Sabatial, a garuda, and I'm my village's alchemist ..." Sabatial then blinked in surprise and shock, and soon went about searching for his satchel, sighing in relief as he found it, "Phew. I don't go anywhere without my satchel, it's got all kinds of ingredients and potions and stuff that I make, and is enchanted to be quite protected and such. Another thing is how similiar our worlds sound Blarna; mountains and elements and stuff."

The horse bobbed his head, "I've often wondered about such, even my .. ahem, world, has a thing with elements. I'm a light-attuned alicorn named Temmire. Not a lot of mountains though, mostly meadows and farms."

"Huh .. what is an alicorn?" The wolf spoke up.

"We're .. like horses, but with a horn and wings and magics in some forms." Temmire answered.

"Interesting. My home is also home to the most amazing community of owls, mostly a tree called Ga'Hoole. Me .. I am the Alpha and the Omega, the watcher and the warrior, I am the pack of one, I am Gyre, the shadow wolf." Said wolf announced with pride.

"Uhh, wow, but what do you mean?" Spyro spoke up, having been immersed into the conversation taking place.

Gyre smiled a wolfly grin as the shadows around him morphed into two transparent, shadowy clones of himself, "I can do this, controlling and sensing through them. They're not very sturdy, the more I make rather, but i can effectively create a pack from just my self."

"Amazing." Spyro nodded, I'm Spyro by the way, my world's .. umm, defender, and speaking of my world ... I don't really know what to call it, some say Dragon Realms, but that seems unfair to the cheetahs and everyone else, so I dunno. I'm a purple dragon, meaning I can use magic and multiple elements and stuff. I wasn't the first though," Spyro looked around, his heart somewhat sinking with a lack of Cynder in sight, "me and a .. dear friend, had fought the previous one, whom would've destroyed the world. We stopped him and saved everyone, ..." Spyro grew silent, thinking more and more about Cynder vanishing from him.

"What's wrong?" Arctura asked, tilting her head.

"Cynder, my friend, she should be here, but she was torn from me while we were coming to this thing." Spyro sighed, wings drooping.

"Oh .. I'm sorry to hear that." Arctura blinked, though a bit confused.

"Wait .. you came here? I wasss assssleep." The serpent spoke then, confused.

"Huh, same." Gyre nodded thoughtfully.

"Agreed." Said the other dragon, as did the others.

Spyro blinked, "None of you came to this thing? Me and Cynder spotted this, and flew here, and were then separated. At least that's all I remember last."

"Odd. Well, I'm Rainbow, and it's amazing to meet you all." Rainbow's scales started turning yellow with purple blotches, getting stares.

"So that's why you're named Rainbow, nice." Spyro blinked, getting a chuckle out of the pun of a name.

Rainbow laughed, "Actually .. no. Just like a real rainbow has seven colors, so do I." Even more surprising than his color-changing scales was that he then started quickly changing shape into six other kinds of dragons, then returning to his previous state.

Spyro and the rest watched in pure awe, taking note of the other forms; first was the brown and tan colored dragon, having a flat-topped snout and lots more muscles, then an aquatic blue with what could pass as luminous stripes scattered around, as well as gills on their neck, and a big-ended tail that looked to be strong enough to be a powerful weapon. Then was the red-orange dragon with large wings and long horns. Next was the pitch-black dragon that was a dark as Gyre, but also had silver scales on the undersides of his wings, appearing like a night sky. Then was the arctic-white and ice-blue form, with a whip-like tail and a spike-like ruff on their neck, and last of the seven was a sand-yellow and white dragon with a scorpion-barbed tail tip, and wavy crest going down the back.

"Oh my wow." Blarna gasped, ruffling her wings.

"Ta da!" Rainbow exclaimed, "You see, in my world, Pyrrhia, there are seven tribes of dragons ... Rainwings, Mudwings, Seawings, Skywings, Nightwings, Icewings, and Sandwings. I'm currently a Rainwing, but I can change to any of the other tribes at any time." He proceeded to change himself to the red-orange form-the Skywing.

"Amazing, but what makes each tribe different?" Spyro asked, tail waving about.

"Good question .. as you saw, Rainwings can change their scale color for camouflage or just cause emotions, and there's the venom-spitting fangs, oh, and prehensile tails. Skywings are some strong fire-breathers and pretty fast flyers, Mudwings are quite bulky and can hold their breath for a while alongside breathing fire. Seawings don't have any breaths, but their tails are strong and thanks to their gills, the ocean makes for a good home. Nightwings are good at hiding and can breath fire ... oh, and there's stories that Nightwings hatched under moonlight have powers, and for Sandwings, they can breath fire too, but the real danger is the poisonous tail tip. Lastly, the Icewings have their frostbreath, which is just as potent as fire." Rainbow proceeded to take a huge deep breath after that explanation.

"Sssplendid newsss. Well, I am Bimcal of the ssserpentine, and yesss, my hissssing isss an accent. There'ssss two kindsss of ssserpentine; winged like me, or with armsss. I can sssspit various kindsss of poisssonsss and give mysssself an acidic aura."

"Sounds cool." Sabatial nodded.

"What else can you tell us?" Blarna asked him.

"Oh, hmm, well I am the king of my kingdom .. which isss really peaceful, sssso I think I've done my job well." Bimcal replied thoughtfully.

"You're a king? I..." Rainbow began, dipping his head down.

"Oh pleassse, you don't need to treat me like one; we're not in my kingdom right now obviousssly nor are you of my ssspeciesss." Bimcal immediately protested with a shake of his head.

"Oh .. okay," Rainbow blinked, "we have monarchs back home too though, so habits."

"Same .. not that I've interacted with them, I try to keep my lives simple." Blarna nodded.

Sabatial shrugged, "Nope, just elders."

Temmire nodded at the garuda, "Less even for us, just community."

Silon spoke back up them, "Yeah .. family and stuff, nothing too special."

Gyre nodded, "I'm a lone wolf, ironically."

"Somewhat too." Arctura agreed.

And the fox whom had spoken even less than Silon nodded, "Same, I live alone now."

"Huh ... well, I guess the Guardians count as elders for the city." Spyro nodded thoughtfully.

"Well, thisss isss quite interesssting, but what'sss next?" Bimcal asked, looking around.

"Mister fox hasn't introduced himself yet." Rainbow reminded the group.

And so nine pairs of eyes turned onto the silent fox, whom chuckled, "Alright, I'll chat, I'm Gaxal. Sounds like a weird name for a mere fox, right? Well, I'm not a fox, at least not always."

"What do you mean?" Spyro asked, feeling a little wary.

"Like Rainbow, I'm a shapeshifter, I can take on just about any form I choose .. any form. Male or female." Gaxal replied casually.

"Wait, what? You can change your gender? How is that even possible?" Rainbow asked, astonished.

"Pretty easily, actually. At least for me; I wasn't born as either. My official species is Yeerk. We're a race of alien slugs with only one ability to our name ... the ability to crawl through your ear, and to your brain, where we can take control of you like a puppet." Gaxal explained.

Blarna shivered at the thought, "That just sounds .. wrong." And the others nodded in agreement.

"It would be, except it sucks to hell to be blind, deaf, mute, and just about everything else. Our only solace comes in the fact that we get those senses by connecting ourselves to a host's brain." Gaxal then replied, a little defensively.

"Wow, but one question, how does this make you a shapeshifter?" Sabatial asked, confused.

"Oh, because one day, I found a world with talking foxes with magical abilities, included a level of shapeshifting, and then I learned that somehow, I too could shapeshift, and have left behind my normal form forever." Gaxal answered, lifting his head up proudly.

"Wow, that does sound interesting." Gyre nodded.

Spyro agreed, "And I thought Rainbow's shapeshifting was cool." Rainbow himself only nodded as well in response.

"I can do some other things as well, mostly on the side of illusion things, like mimicry and invisibility and phantoms and stuff." Gaxal replied, "Well, enough about me ... where are we, and what are we going to do?"

Spyro blinked, and looked around at the unchanging room, "I .. do not know."

Rainbow gulped, still a Skywing, "Good question."

 **(** And so we have the cast:

Spyro, everyone's(?) favorite purple dragon

Rainbow, the Pyrrhian shapeshifter (If you don't know Tui Sutherland's Wings of Fire series ... go read it, just cause.)

Blarna, the fire phoenix

Sabatial, the garuda alchemist

Temmire the light alicorn (not the MLP series, but my own design)

Bimcal, the serpentine king (Design is based off of Yugioh's Sinister Serpent, but the world is mine.)

Gyre, the shadow wolf (Usually a resident of the Guardians of Ga'Hoole world.)

Arctura of the Seekers-Earth (Erin Hunter's bear books.)

Silon the Silverwing bat (Kenneth Oppel's Silverwing series.)

Gaxal the shapeshifting Yeerk (From the Animorphs series, yet introduced to the Foxcraft trilogy Earth.)

... ... So, what do you all think? I've got big plans for this story, for there's a lot within the Echelon, more than anyone of the ten could guess. Oh, I do intend to experiment with first-person at times, in order to "get inside" the thoughts of my OC's better. And yeah, it's the cast that makes this a crossover. **)**


End file.
